"The Family Trade" is a tremendously fun action adventure about development economics. Stross seems to subvert expectations; the main idea is that a 32 year old investigative journalist finds out she is a powerful countess in a medieval kingdom. What is every little girl's fantasy turns out the be every independent woman's nightmare. One of the themes that resonates with me is how feudal organized crime is. Not only is the mafia feudal today, but the old aristocracies functioned like the mob. Stross' anger against nobility seems very British. It makes me wonder how often one encounters the British aristocracy in modern-day England.